It Was A Beautiful Day

A snooze alarm clock cannot wake a sleepy person. The bell of the alarm clock hence becomes a hypnotic trigger. Such an ordinary sound is redefined in our drowsy moments, and we are also liberated from the sounds that condition our lives—queue management systems, electric scooters, air raid drills, and public demonstrations. These sounds are released from the soft soil of our consciousness and grow into a new scene. And we sail with those who cannot be awakened on a boat drifting off course into a new realm projected by frequency. This is a film you can watch with your eyes closed.

'90s indie-rock band Pavement reunites for their sold-out 2022 tour. But as preparations get underway, surreal tributes emerge: an off-Broadway musical adaptation of their songs, a museum devoted entirely to the band’s legacy, and a shamelessly awards-baiting Hollywood biopic.

During the last forty years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity. He has witnessed the major events of our recent history: international conflicts, starvations and exodus… He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of the wild fauna and flora, of grandiose landscapes: a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet's beauty. Salgado's life and work are revealed to us by his son, Juliano, who went with him during his last journeys, and by Wim Wenders, a photographer himself.

Today, analogue video is attractive primarily thanks to the distinctive aesthetic quality of its pixelated image and raster errors. But for Czech artists who first explored the possibilities offered by video art in the late 1980s, this medium represented a path towards freedom. Through a portrait of her grandfather Radek Pilař, one of the pioneers of Czech video art, the director explores her own legacy of imperative creative fascination. Her film’s main story, i.e., the process of reconstructing the 1989 exhibition Video Day, contrasts this enchantment with life in the final days of the totalitarian regime, which different sharply with the adventures of those who decided to emigrate – whom the filmmaker also visits in order to discover forgotten works, get to know their creators, and re-establish broken ties.

IDFA and Canadian filmmaker Peter Wintonick had a close relationship for decades. He was a hard worker and often far from home, visiting festivals around the world. In 2013, he died after a short illness. His daughter Mira was left behind with a whole lot of questions, and a box full of videotapes that Wintonick shot for his Utopia project. She resolved to investigate what sort of film he envisaged, and to complete it for him.

Jim Moir (aka Vic Reeves) explores Video Art, revealing how different generations ‘hacked’ the tools of television to pioneer new ways of creating art that can be beautiful, bewildering and wildly experimental.

An experimental look at the origin of the death myth of the Chinookan people in the Pacific Northwest, following two people as they navigate their own relationships to the spirit world and a place in between life and death.

Recuerdos de Extremadura is a film essay about memory and the act of filming, where reality and fiction mingle in a sea of memories. In 2018, the director attempted to shoot his first film, The Third Woman, in Cáceres, with his friend Amanda Toro as the main character. However, the project remained unfinished. Years later, this experimental medium-length film returns to those images, confronting the filmed material with the distance of the present. What emerges is a reflection on cinema and memories, on cinema as trace and absence.

An excerpt about the troubled, passionate and intriguing relationship of an actor with his own life.

STRATA INCOGNITA, is a trans-scalar and trans-temporal journey across the geographies that articulate soil as an agro-industrial infrastructure, but also as an ecosystem and a somatic archive of crimes, memories and myths.

A unique cinematic experience that invites audiences on a vibrant journey through the life of cultural icon Pharrell Williams. Told through the lens of LEGO® animation, turn up the volume on your imagination and witness the evolution of one of music's most innovative minds.

This film was made out of the capture of a live animation performance presented in Rome in January 2005 by Pierre Hébert and the musician Bob Ostertag. It is based on live action shooting done that same afternoon on the Campo dei Fiori where the philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned by the Inquisition in 1600. A commemorative statue was erected in the 19th century, that somberly dominate the market held everyday on the piazza. The film is about the resurgence of the past in this place where normal daily activities go on imperturbably. The capture of the performance was reworked, shortened and complemented with more studio performances.

In 2002, Lana Kaiser became well known in the first season of the German version of the Idol television franchise. She was born in 1985 and went by her birth name Daniel Küblböck. At only 17 years old she polarised the audience with her androgynous appearance and open bisexuality. On September 9th 2018, Lana disappeared from a cruise ship on her way to North America. Most media outlets and the majority of the public didn‘t consider calling her by her chosen name, Lana Kaiser. Philipp Gufler's video installation is a personal portrait of the singer and entertainer.

After concluding the now-legendary public access TV series, The Pain Factory, Michael Nine embarked on a new and more subversive public access endeavor: a collaboration with Scott Arford called Fuck TV. Whereas The Pain Factory predominantly revolved around experimental music performances, Fuck TV was a comprehensive and experiential audio-visual presentation. Aired to a passive and unsuspecting audience on San Francisco’s public access channel from 1997 to 1998, each episode of Fuck TV was dedicated to a specific topic, combining video collage and cut-up techniques set to a harsh electronic soundtrack. The resultant overload of processed imagery and visceral sound was unlike anything presented on television before or since. EPISODES: Yule Bible, Cults, Riots, Animals, Executions, Static, Media, Haterella (edited version), Self Annihilation Live, Electricity.

A filmmaker’s meditation on loss and grief. A digital eulogy and swan song to his creative partner and best friend. Mixed media woven into the fading daydream of their time together.

Return

In the town of Xoco, the spirit of an old villager awakens in search of its lost home. Along its journey, the ghost discovers that the town still celebrates its most important festivities, but also learns that the construction of a new commercial complex called Mítikah will threaten the existence of both the traditions and the town itself.

The Enigma of Hedonism are profile documentaries that tell the life of Heri Dono. His attitude and view as an artist that transcends canvas and time has had an important impact on artists and artists in other fields in their work. Not only that, his exploration of the various and types of working mediums and the experience of participating in various prestigious exhibitions in the world has made him dubbed as the greatest artist of Indonesia today.

In his book "1984", George Orwell saw the television of the future as a control instrument in the hands of Big Brother. Right at the start of the much-anticipated Orwellian year, Paik and Co. were keen to demonstrate satellite TV's ability to serve positive ends-- Namely, the intercontinental exchange of culture, combining both highbrow and entertainment elements. A live broadcast shared between WNET TV in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, linked up with broadcasters in Germany and South Korea, reached a worldwide audience of over 10 or even 25 million (including the later repeat transmissions).

A documentary about a person who cleans his room with a vacuum cleaner, filled with disasters and mishaps.